Learn five signs and use them
Hello, thank you, sorry, please, your name. Five signs is enough to change an encounter completely.
The BeingKind editorsPublished How this is written
Why it lands
A deaf person's daily experience is one of near-total linguistic isolation in public — everyone communicates in a language they cannot hear, and interactions are conducted through gesture and repetition. Five signs will not make you a signer, but the act of having learnt any is read immediately as effort rather than tolerance, and deaf people describe it as the difference between being served and being met.
How
Learn the fingerspelling alphabet and a handful of greetings from a deaf-led organization rather than a random video. Use them. Keep a pen and paper to hand as well, which remains the most practical fallback.
This is part of
A written list of what else helps in the same situation.
Related
Leave a note for your mail carrier
The person who walks to your door most days almost never hears from the people who live behind it.
5 minutesFreeA stranger2 people did this
Add alt text to your images
An image without a description is a blank space to anyone using a screen reader. Writing one takes twenty seconds.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Leave the accessible toilet alone
It is not the spare one when there is a queue. For some people it is the only one in the building.
5 minutesFreeA stranger2 people did this
Read the form out loud for someone
Around one in six adults reads below the level most official forms are written at.
Half an hourFreeA neighbor
Correct your own mistake where you made it
Misinformation spreads further than corrections. Correcting yourself in the original place is the only version that works.
5 minutesFreeA stranger